Tag: Sheffield

Exhaustion

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

They say variety is the spice of life. Well they say something is the spice of life but I’m exhausted and exactly what it is doesn’t feel overly important right now. If that is accurate I guess the assumption must be that variety makes life interesting, and keeps you coming back for more, gives you energy and enthusiasm one could say. Variety in the sense of exhaustion, as exhaustion is just another part of life is it not, would suggest that different types of exhaustion make the act or sense of exhaustion interesting and worth repeating, eliciting enthusiasm even. Does exhaustion give you energy in that case? It is said that the more you do; the more you do, and that is not accidental repetition. When people exercise for the first time they may be able to run for five minutes before suffering for a few days and forcing seven minutes out of themselves the next time. Eventually they’re running thirty minutes every day and find themselves more energised throughout the day as a whole. Arguably they’re doing more but feeling less exhaustion, and with it exercise becomes some sort of a paradox.

The point to all this is that today I have experienced some variety in my exhaustive state. I returned from Sheffield last night, slept three hours and went and delivered bread. Let’s just say I was pretty tired by the end but somehow I felt that past tired feeling in which you can’t seem to stop and won’t until you collapse. After about another three hours sleep I went to my kickboxing class and worked hard. Today I sparred with the coach as numbers were odd and while clearly he holds back, he’s still too fast for me and got me with a good uppercut at one point. I was pretty tired during the class because I was working hard and it can be an exhausting sport when you do put the effort in. When I got back to the car I felt pretty happy with myself, post exercise dopamine release or something like that, but I felt energised and could have done more.

I am looking forward to my bed but it is important not to allow exhaustion to stop us from doing things. We are far more capable of finding energy when we have to than what we convince ourselves as we flop onto the sofa and watch a film. When we listen to the idle monster, or the inner bitch as I’ve heard it said, in our mind we do less, and feel like doing less the next time. It’s a vicious spiral, the opposite to the runner improving time and regularity each day. It can be hard but once we train our minds to quit whinging, embrace the new routine and just do it, it is remarkable how quickly it can be easy to do anything which in the past you would convince yourself you were too tired for. The body and mind are incredible things, individually and together, perhaps it may be time to stop wasting them and start making the most of the remarkable things we’re capable of as a species.

Blog Dilemmas

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

It is important in life to always want to improve or make progress. That doesn’t mean we should lack contentment with what we have or desire more but accept that we live in an impermanent world and with everything constantly changing we mustn’t sit still and stagnate. I say that in regards to this blog. I am happy just writing one piece a day and while the quality varies from articles I’m pleased with to ones I know are rushed or half arsed, the standard at present is satisfactory in the fact that I’m aware this is a work in progress and an experiment in writing as much as anything else. The last two days have been tough as I’ve been down in Sheffield, working and being exhausted. Even now, I have just got home and while it feels like time for bed I have to write this. What is important is that in some ways it’s easy, the habit has been formed now that to make it feel completely natural to sit down here and write up a piece. So much of our existence revolves around conditioned habits and it is satisfying to realise this is a healthy and productive habit I have managed to foster in myself.

How then does that develop from here? To write more than once a day misses the point, now I have the habit, it has to be about improving the output. The habit has to be maintained and that is partly because the experiment itself was to write one piece a day but also because after nearly three months I’m not convinced the habit is deep enough to survive too much of a change yet. I was thinking earlier how excited I am to complete this year and be able to write less frequently but to a higher standard. It was a long drive back and I came to the conclusion that the ideal would be to write one, possibly two pieces a week, of about one thousand one hundred words and to take the time to make them of real quality. Writing a successful blog is a challenging endeavour, they can be successful because you choose to write about something you know will be popular or marketable, generic dare I say. This blog will struggle because I lack cohesion when choosing topics and because they are daily they lack a standard required to really be happy with. To write one decent piece a week would allow for more thought to go into it.

However this could just be me convincing myself of some literary grass being greener idea. Maybe it will be exactly the same, the same sometimes standard but less frequently. We always love to convince ourselves that we can’t improve the situation exactly like it is, that we just need to do this or that and everything will then be perfect. It’s the same with life and happiness…if only we made that one change in our life…job, girlfriend, new toy…happiness would be right around the corner. It allows us to not have to improve the present set of circumstances but dream of some hypothetical future. A hypothetical future blog then will never be exactly as the fantasy desires it. This current incarnation is real, perhaps it would be worth starting on that.

Tap Garden At Peddler Night Market

Hamar Williams

Saw my first grown man on one of those scooters made famous by Google today. I’m embracing market stall life at Peddler Night Market in Sheffield helping out a mate at his juice market stall. Let’s call this some free advertising for his tasty, healthy fresh homemade soda juices and punch, all non-alcoholic. Tap Garden it’s called and you can find him on all good social media…Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. #tapgarden #tapgardendrinks

It’s a pretty cool place, one of these old brick warehouses that can be found partly abandoned and partly reinvigorated by wealthy alternative hipsters. I realised after about five minutes that I should have worn my Dr Marten boots like everyone else, certainly feel I missed a trick by yet again being the only person in the building wearing Crocs. One day they will fulfil their destiny and find their rightful place as the only footwear of choice. Until then though I can continue to feel superior as the only Crocs related enlightened being in the place.

Apparently Sheffield is quite a cool city. Lots of students, cheap cost of living, a once vibrant city that didn’t lose its population to Manchester or London now become vibrant in a new way. They call it the Bristol of the north apparently. Bristol without southerners, it sounds perfect. It also has a canal running through it because of all the industry in the past. It actually appeals massively and I’m filing the place away in the ‘possibilities at a later date’ section of the storage unit in my mind. It seems to be the constant issue in life of finding the perfect way to exist. Be in a cool place with interesting people, beautiful, not too busy or crowded, close to nature, relaxed, close to the sea, etc. Sheffield doesn’t have all these thing so it is not perfect but then let’s be honest perfect doesn’t exist. It seems to be about finding some kind of contentment in life whatever that means. I’m sure it will make an appearance one day if I look hard enough, or stop looking at all. I’m sure the answer is somewhere, probably inside of me they say.

Anyway that’s all for today, it feels like a short piece but so be it. Today and tomorrow will be busy days so I doubt you’ll get much more than this again tomorrow but that magic 400 words of wisdom mark can’t be hit everyday. If I know anyone in Sheffield then pop down, come say hello…drink some juice at Tap Garden…the only place for fresh juice made with real ingredients and love.